


the fume of sighs

by CopperCaravan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 05:05:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4551627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Tamlen becomes the Warden. Companion piece to "The Hero, He was Dalish." The boys light up (spindleweed) by the river and there's almost a proposition. Originally, this was one of the scenes in "The Hero, He was Dalish," but I removed it because I didn't like the flow. I wasn't planning on keeping it, but then I thought I'd go ahead and put it up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fume of sighs

**Author's Note:**

> I decided on spindleweed because of what Zevran tells Tamlen about its uses (which is in one of the codex entries). As for the title: Romeo & Juliet, 1.1 line 181.

The night is heavy and cool, pressing against him like comfort—a damp cloth against feverish skin.

They’ve gone away from the camp, left the fire to the others tonight.

Zevran’s back is pressed against his own as he passes the smoking herbs, the hazy clouds spiralling into the air around them like wisps called forth by his Keeper and the glowing tip the only light to be seen.

Tamlen inhales.

Junar used to do this with him. Not often, but on nights when there was no need for them, they’d pilfer ground spindleweed from Hahren Paivel’s stores and smoke down by the river.

It is a melancholic calm—just memory and dimness and aching. It is everything he has had no time to feel: sadness filling the gap of his lungs and resting there before the exhale.

“You know,” Zevran begins, his muscles shifting only slightly against Tamlen’s back. “In Antiva, neighbours would often bring whole bushels of this stuff to the mourning—widows, for example.”

“That so?” He’s heard these stories, although he’s not sure where. On the road, perhaps, near the countryside. His clan did not keep such a practice—there was no need, for no one grieved alone.

“I’ve also heard tell that when consumed with honey, it is an excellent aphrodisiac.” A pause. “Although, I may be confusing it with something else, Blood Lotus perhaps. The lad who told me was not what I would call a reliable source.”

The smoke drifts lazy in the air, fading the sharp edges and disappearing, soft, into the night.

Tamlen inhales.

“I... No, lethallin, I’m sorry.” And he is. When they’d met, he would not have thought it, but he has come to care for Zevran. But as a friend, as a comrade.

“Is it because—” _Because I am a man? Because I am a Crow? Because I tried to kill you—that was just once, you should let that go, my friend._

But Tamlen cuts him off. “No, it’s not that.” Because whatever Zevran will say, the reasons are far simpler. _You are my friend,_ he wants to tell him, _one I never thought to find._ It is because he misses his people. It is because the tattoos on Zevran’s face are not vallaslin but they give Tamlen comfort all the same. It is because Junar used to smoke with him by the river and Mahariel used to love him there.

Tamlen will let Zevran be Zevran—his friend and comrade and unexpected joy. But he will not try to force Zevran into the holes left by others, holes that can never be filled.

He rests his free hand on Zevran’s fingers, laced into the dewy grass.

Inhale.

“Can you settle for this?” he says, raising his other hand and gesturing to nothing—to the dark around them, to the vanishing smoke, to the impossibility of it all.

“I would not call it settling.”

Exhale.


End file.
